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David Goldblatt: In Boksburg

Text by David Goldblatt, Sean O’Toole.

David Goldblatt’s (born 1930) In Bosburg was published in 1982, making it one of the earlier photobooks in South African history. Goldblatt, himself from a white background and a critical observer of the racist dynamics of his native country, was interested in capturing the "wholly uneventful flow of commonplace, orderly life" of the white population around him. Boksburg, a legally white-only town on the Eastern periphery of Johannesburg (which, at the time, was heavily dependent on black labor), seemed to best fit his purposes, and between 1979 and 1980 he recorded everyday scenes in the town. This new edition includes several additional photographs and a new essay by Sean O’Toole, providing penetrating insight into the history of the book and the story behind the photographs and their subject.

Featured image is reproduced from David Goldblatt: In Boksburg.

PRAISE AND REVIEWS

The New York Times Lens Blog

Finbarr O'Reilly

In boksburg offers a sober view of a bygone era of legislated white privilege... The photographs reveal that life for small-town, middle-class whites in South Africa was much as it was elsewhere, only with apartheid looming behind it.

Aperture Magazine

Ian Bourland

Goldblatt’s trenchant account of 1970s-era, middle-class white privilege in the 1982 book In Boksburg is a sobering counterpoint to the politically inflected photojournalism of the time, in which incendiary racial conflicts portrayed South Africa in a state of endless crisis.

David Goldblatt’s (born 1930) In Bosburg was published in 1982, making it one of the earlier photobooks in South African history. Goldblatt, himself from a white background and a critical observer of the racist dynamics of his native country, was interested in capturing the "wholly uneventful flow of commonplace, orderly life" of the white population around him. Boksburg, a legally white-only town on the Eastern periphery of Johannesburg (which, at the time, was heavily dependent on black labor), seemed to best fit his purposes, and between 1979 and 1980 he recorded everyday scenes in the town. This new edition includes several additional photographs and a new essay by Sean O’Toole, providing penetrating insight into the history of the book and the story behind the photographs and their subject.